


Attachment

by Nikolai_Alexi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attachment, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Phil Coulson, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton kinda goes off the deep end, Clint Barton wasn't always good, Clint Needs a Hug, Clint...Clint is a mess, Deaf Clint Barton, Death Threats, Hurt Clint Barton, Just generally a whole clusterfuck of a story, Mentions of Dicatatorship, Mentions of Waterboarding, Mentions of self-harm and suicidal thoughts/actions/tendencies/attempts, Natasha Romanov loses her absolute shit, Nick Fury is a Good Bro, Nick Fury is one hundred percent done with Clint's shit, Non-Canon Scenario, North Korea, One-Shot, Other, Phil Coulson loses his absolute shit, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Protective Phil Coulson, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicidal!Clint, Suicidal!Loki, Thaddeus Ross needs to take a bullet or twenty through the head, The Raft, Threats of Execution, Tony Stark sorta accidentally makes Clint's floor a bio-metric prison, mentions of child abuse, mentions of rape/non-con, mentions of torture, mercenary!Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 17:31:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11605461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikolai_Alexi/pseuds/Nikolai_Alexi
Summary: Clint Barton has this habit...





	Attachment

Clint Barton has this habit. This dumb, stupid, irritating habit that gets him in more trouble than he's worth.

That habit? 

Getting attached. Whether it's people, places, things, sights, smells, sounds (when his hearing aids are in), feelings, it doesn't matter. The fact is, Clint Barton gets attached. And it's really fucking annoying.

In example, as he's laying down on the _freezing_ concrete floor of the cell he's in trying to fight a temperature spike because one of his numerous wounds are infected, all he can think about is the hundreds of millions of times Natasha had lifted his head into her lap, ran her fingers through his unruly blond locks, and sang him to sleep when he was hurting.

Or the billions of times Phil would keep watch all night in the med bay because Clint would never feel safe enough to sleep in there if Phil wasn't there. 

All he can think about is how much he _misses_ them. And he's Hawkeye. He never misses. 

He's half delirious by the time he realises that he has tears rolling down his face. No one else notices. He learned to cry silently many, many years ago.

In his half-conscious state, he remembers that square of deep, jewel, softie fabric that Phil gave to him all those years ago. It was just a square piece of fabric, but even now, twelve years later, Clint still had it. It was this soft material that felt different if you rubbed it upwards than when you rubbed it downwards. He wishes he had it with him. Maybe he'd feel closer to home.

Speaking of home, he kinda missed Stark Tower. It'd taken a hell of a lot of convincing from Natasha, Miss Potts, Phil, and Stark himself to get him to move into the floor that was designed for him, but as he always did, he gave in to Nat’s quiet, heartbroken, Russian, pleading and had gotten attached. Big surprise there.

He wondered if Stark had already re-purposed it. Now that Clint was officially a criminal being held at the world’s most secret and most secure prison, he wondered if he'd ever see any of the team again. If Cap and Bucky were doing okay. How Nat and Phil were. If Bruce was back. How Thor and Loki were doing (just because he still kinda, sorta, really hated the guy doesn't mean he doesn't recognise the signs of self-destruction and suicidal tendencies). If King Stick-Up-His-Ass had gone back to wherever the hell he came from. If Stark had taken the little spider kid in under his wing. If Rhodey was still pissed at them (he knew the answer to that one, but still). If Vision was still being an ass (he also knew the answer to this one...he really couldn't stand Vision). 

Speaking of Nat and Phil. Where the hell were they? Nat always came for him. So did Phil...when he wasn't playing dead for a year because Nick Fury is the world’s biggest asshole.

Regardless, Clint had been here for weeks. There was no messages, no movements in the shadows, no signals, no signs, nothing. Nothing to signify if his best friend and handler were going to come back for him. Or if he'd have to rely on his long buried merc to help him out.

It turned out that he did end up having to dig up the former shell of his thought-to-be-long-dead alter ego. It wasn't a pretty sight. Clint himself had two infected bullet wounds, fluid in his lungs, a fractured ankle, four or five broken ribs, and like seven broken fingers. All in all...he should be walking...or running...or killing people…or flying a stolen quinjet with an ex-airforce pilot, a homesick criminal, and a teenage witch who looked about six seconds from death.

He doesn't talk to them.

He doesn't say a word as he lands on the pad of Stark Tower. They already know what they're doing there. Sam - Wilson, he has to start calling him Wilson again, rushes Wanda to Stark’s medical bay before the jet even lands. Scott - Lang isn't far behind him. Clint takes a breath to steady himself. The pain radiating all over his body grounds him for what he's going to have to do.

They're all in the common room by the time he limps through the door. He looks pathetic. But he also looks murderous. Everyone except Natasha - Romanov, _god that hurts more than it should_ , and Coulson startle at the state he's in. N-Romanov opens her mouth and goes to rush towards him, but before she can even move, he has a nine millimetre handgun levelled between her eyes.

“Don't even think about it, Romanov. Another step and I won't hesitate this time.” He growls. His voice is either rusty from disuse or hoarse from crying. He's not sure anymore, but it doesn't make a difference. His familiar growl, the one he used all those years ago, is easy to slip into. Like an old hoodie. It's not comfortable by any means, but it's familiar. And he sees Natasha's complete surprise and utter disbelief when she realises that he's not kidding. She backs away slowly and lowers her eyes. He doesn't lower the gun.

“Clint-” 

“Save it, Coulson. I have better things to do.” He stalks off. He heads straight to his floor and packs what he can. He can't take much, not like he has much, but he indulges himself a little and takes a few things he's grown attached to. Like that little piece of fabric and the picture on his nightstand. He grabs a shower and packs his own first aid supplies. He doesn't have time to patch himself up right now. He needs to get out of here before he runs out of rage to fuel his hostility. 

He takes his bow, but leaves the arrows that Stark made him. They were never his to begin with. 

He hightails it out the window rather than going back through the commons. It's safer this way. For all of them.

* * *

Lang is waiting when he gets there. Wilson is nowhere in sight. Clint can't bring himself to care. If Wilson got himself thrown back in prison and killed it was his own damn fault.

They're up in the air before either one of them speaks, “Wanda will be okay,” Lang murmurs. Clint doesn't respond.

Clint ditches Lang in the middle of the woods where the man informs him that Hank Pym’s daughter will come rescue him. Clint takes his word for it and leaves without a word. 

He flies for nearly 20 hours. He's somewhere in Russia. He knows he shouldn't have come here, but he did anyway. He blames the pain, infections, fever, and exhaustion. 

It takes him ages to doctor himself up. 

He's exhausted, but he doesn't sleep. 

Instead, he rubs that damned piece of fabric and stares through tearlaiden eyes at the picture he took from his nightstand.

He starts taking jobs not even six months later. He's numb and he doesn't care anymore. It makes him sloppy, but that doesn't matter anymore either. They already know his signature. They know his style. With or without the bow, they know. He takes very little joy in the fact that it's tearing them apart. 

He sees her sometimes. Flashes of crimson red. A recent signal. Tiny footprints in the snow leading up to his safe house. Restocked groceries that he didn't buy. Warmer clothes. Passports. Birth certificates. New identities. They're all her doing. He ignores them. She sticks around anyway.

He doesn't know where she's staying, but he can't find it in himself to care. He offhandedly thinks that it's been a long time since he last felt like this.

* * *

He starts to eye booze with a lingering gaze.

Russian alcohol quickly becomes his best friend. Their vodka is disgusting, but it warms as it slides down his throats and feels familiar in a way he wishes it didn't. Romanov steals every bottle he buys each time he passes out. 

He sees her one morning...or maybe it was night. He didn't pay attention anymore. He woke to the feeling of being watched and being touched. Too thin, but familiar fingers ran nails gently over his scalp and combed through his disgustingly greasy hair and he heard small, barely there, hiccoughing sobs that definitely don't rip out his heart and pierce it with a sharpened stiletto. She knows he's awake. He gives her only a few moments before he rolls over and shuns her. It's good enough for her...for now.

He leaves Russia a week later. She finds him in Germany. 

She's not alone this time. Coulson is with her, big surprise, but that's not all. The Director, Rogers, Barnes, Maximoff, Wilson, and Loki were all with her. He would have rolled his eyes at the elementary-esque style, but found he didn't have the energy to do so. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. They follow him determinedly for weeks. He soon learns why. 

The reason for Loki, Rogers, Barnes, Romanov, Coulson, and Fury are on the same team makes sense. They're herding him. He finds he doesn't care.

He takes more jobs than he did before. Just to piss them off.

It doesn't work.

German alcohol isn't nearly as strong as Russian. Romanov steals his booze anyways.

Loki pulls him off a skyscraper before he can jump.

He tries again in San Francisco. Barnes does it that time.

Rogers does it next in Japan.

Romanov does it in Brazil.

Fury yanks him back by the scruff of his t-shirt like an impetulant kitten in New York while grumbling about the fact that he had better things to do than babysit him. Clint thinks he replied with something sarcastic because Fury tosses him on his ass as soon as they reach ground level. Then again, Fury's tossed him on his ass before, but that time he kinda deserved it.

Coulson...Coulson looks as though he's torn to "save" him in Budapest.

A smartass remark is all it takes for the man to yank Clint's underweight body into a warm embrace and hold him there. Clint doesn't notice the handcuffs. Or well…he does. He just doesn't care. Perhaps that's why he was hesitant. 

It's been almost two years, he realises. Two years since he'd be hugged. He feels that golden string of attachment begin to stitch itself into Coulson again. He cuts it with a pair of rusty, bloody, scissors and forces it behind a mask of cold fury. 

Romanov and Coulson both flinch.

He's not taken to SHIELD. Or an interrogation room. Or a hospital. Loki heals him with magic and promptly vanishes. Fury ducks out as soon as they have Clint settled on Natasha's bed. Rogers and Barnes retreat silently. Natasha pulls out a half bottle of the vodka he'd got in Russia and downs a large swallow of the disgusting alcohol before passing it to Clint. He took more than she does. She doesn't comment.

Wanda comes to see him.

He checks her over for injuries and finds none except the sunken bruising of her eyes. It looks like he's not the only one not sleeping. They share a loaded look and nod. She doesn't come to see him again.

Barnes comes to see him. That's a surprise in itself. But when Banner appears from behind the super soldier’s massive frame, he feels like he's been electrocuted. 

“Medical deems you're clear to leave. We figured you might need some help up to your floor. Since Natasha has been sent on a solo mission.” He'd never been more thankful for Banner’s quiet voice and shy demeanour. Clint disconnected his own IV line and rolled to his feet gracefully. He snatched his duffel and stalked to the bathroom to change. He'd leave as soon as he could.

He hears they talking quietly before he opens the door, “-he's going to be angry.”

“I know. I tried to talk Tony out of it, but he's hearing nothing of it. I think he's been hit just as hard as Natasha with Clint's disappearance. I don't know what happened before SHIELD or the Avengers to that man, but this shell that looks like him...I'm worried, Coulson.”

Coulson made an agreeing noise, “This...this is the Clint I found, Banner. This is who I put a bullet in and drug kicking, screaming, and fighting into SHIELD. This is who he was for the vast majority of his life. He can't trust any of us anymore. We betrayed him. I betrayed him. He made that very clear.” 

“So how do we get our Clint back?” Banner asked. Coulson choked out a bitter laugh.

“We may never.” Clint could picture Banner’s confused look being directed at anyone who would answer his questions.

Barnes took the liberty, “He’s gonna leave as soon as we turn aroun’. If he hasn't already. It's not up to us to decide whether he comes back. This is no longer his home. His family betrayed him. He thinks he's alone. Probably thinks we're gonna replace ‘im. He's resorted to his former self. The one who doesn't need anyone, can take care of himself, lone wolf, that doesn't need jack shit from anyone, and doesn't have a weakness. Weaknesses out in the underworld mean you die. So he's making sure he can keep himself together before he goes off the radar. At that point, we'll never find him. Unless he comes to us.”

“You talk like you know his style well?” Banner asked. Barnes snorted.

“Barton and I have a bit of history.” Was all he said. _You could say that again._

“1990?” Coulson asked. Clint assumed that Barnes nodded, “So that's who that was.” 

“He told you about that?” 

“Not really. Just the basics. I pieced together enough on my own.” The slight bitterness and audible note of jealousy was picked up by everyone. Barnes doesn't speak again.

Clint walked out of the bathroom. He wore a long sleeve black shirt that looks about three sizes too big, dark jeans, and his worse-for-wear sneakers. Barnes motioned for him to follow. 

They took him to his old floor. The second they stepped off the elevator, he knew something was off. The hairs on the back of his neck standing up weren't from Coulson standing behind him. His eyes flicked to the vent above the kitchen. There were new bolts on it. They were welded into the frame. He wouldn't be able to get it open. He looked at the window. There was a bio-metric lock. He'd bet every last penny he had that it wasn't keyed to him. Then he saw the cameras. He glared harshly at the three men.

Banner held his hands up, “Tony.” Was all he said.

If he had the energy or the ability to care anymore, he’d probably kill Stark. He didn’t though. And Stark didn’t know just how good he was at getting out of things. This was a glorified version of a cell. It wouldn’t be hard. He just had to bide his time. 

The have Barnes stay with him that night. He snarls silently into the dark. The super soldier is staring right at him.

“I’m not gonna stop you, but it’ll crush them.” He says. Clint grins, but it’s all teeth and rage.

“That’s the point.”

Barnes sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, “Yeah...I know. That’s why I wish you wouldn’t do it.”

Clint barks out a laugh, “Oh if only wishes were horses. Maybe I wouldn’t have been abandoned by people I thought had cared.” He’s said too much. But he always said too much around Barnes. That’s how they met.

“They didn’t have a choice, Barton.”

“And when has that ever stopped them?” He thinks that he has the soldier now. It was true. If Romanov and Coulson didn’t like the orders they were given, they didn’t follow them. That’s how it was. 

“When has that ever stopped them? When your life was being dangled in front of them,” Barnes took a breath and flexed his flesh hand into a fist, “Ross said that if they even tried to locate The Raft he’d have you executed and videoed to show them. Natasha and Coulson knew you’d figure out they couldn’t come for you and the others and you’d break them all out. That’s your _game_ , Barton. Anyone with any sliver of common sense could see that. You make everyone think you’re this obnoxious, dumb, free-for-all, egotistical, agent who’s worth nothing except for an above average aim. You wait until they think they’ve broken you down to nothing. You have them all fooled and then your trap is sprung. And none of them ever live to tell the tale about the ex-merc SHIELD agent who may be worth just a little bit more than what his file says.”

Clint is taken aback. They had tried? Why didn’t they leave signals? Could he trust what Barnes was saying?

“Clint. Listen to me. Natasha killed four of Ross’s men when he told her that before anyone even had a chance to react. Fury had to hold Coulson back and I had to put Natasha on the floor and practically lay on top of her to keep her from killing Ross himself. You’ve seen Natasha lose it more than I have, but Clint, Natasha lost her shit. She was screaming, crying, trying to claw her way out from under me. She kept crying for you in her sleep. She didn’t eat or sleep. She just curled up in your room and refused to talk to us. She’d wake up screaming for you. Clint, she was heartbroken. When you left, she followed to make sure you didn’t end up killing yourself or taking a job you couldn’t handle. When she came back, she holed up with Coulson in your room and we didn’t see them for days. She got shipped out before they could tell you.”

Barnes was obviously waiting for a response but when he remained silent Barnes sighed, “Barton, tell me what happened in North Korea.”

Clint’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch, “A foreigner was captured by theoretical hostiles in an unknown location in the Chagang Province, North Korea on July 2nd and taken to a theoretical underground prison for captured persons that have offended the dictator at the current time. The foreigner was held for six days while the execution date was being decided on. An hour before the foreign prisoner was to be executed, said prisoner disappeared from the underground, Dictator Kim Il-sung died unexpectedly of a heart attack, the underground facility was bombed, and forty civilian casualties resulted in a building collapse. All theoretical, of course.” 

Barnes smiled a smile that didn’t reach those terrifying blue eyes, “Exactly.” 

Barnes turns to walk away, but stops a says over his shoulder, “Even if I could stop you, I wouldn’t. But I think you should think about what you’re doing. Next time you decide to be an idiot, no one will be there to pull you back. If not for yourself, think about Natasha and Phil.”

Barnes walks away after that. He doesn’t hear Clint drop the bag resting on his shoulder. He doesn’t see Clint go back to the master bedroom and curling up with that picture on his nightstand cradled against his chest. He most definitely doesn’t hear Clint opening the vent in his room and crawling up two floors. He also doesn’t check the security cameras to see what Clint’s done. He doesn’t smile when he sees Clint curled under Natasha’s chin in that familiar way that shouldn’t work because of their height differences. He doesn’t laugh when he sees Phil Coulson’s completely shocked face when the agent comes back in the room. 

Bucky Barnes doesn’t hear or see any of this. Not a single thing.

What he does see, however, is one Clinton Francis Barton curled up on the couch with his head on Natasha Romanov’s lap and his feet in Phil Coulson’s lap holding up an upside down mystery novel that the man is pretending to read. 

What he does see, is one Clinton Francis Barton looking like he’s actually slept.

What he does see, is one Clinton Francis Barton coming home.

What he does see, is one Clinton Francis Barton recovering.

And if every now and again, he sees Clint perched on the edge of Stark Tower’s roof with a piece of jewel purple fabric and a picture of Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanov, and himself smiling like nothing in the world was wrong with their arms slung around each other and water droplets on the camera lens?

Well...that was for him and the gods, that didn’t live under the same roof as him, to know.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the story! I was having a bad day and this is what happened. Poor Clint is a total mess and eventually someone has to knock some sense into him. I know Natasha is a little OoC, but I have a soft spot for her caring so much for one person that her Mask of Steel dissolves. 
> 
> By the way!! I take one-shot/short story requests! Come follow me on Tumblr at [Nikolai-Alexi](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nikolai-alexi) my Ask Box is always open!
> 
> Comments, Kudos, Bookmarks, etc are always welcome! Constructive criticism is definitely encouraged!


End file.
